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BACK-TO-BACK wins have given a young Port Adelaide team confidence to tackle the rest of the season and demonstrated the playing group’s improvement, according to Power midfielder Kane Cornes.

Port Adelaide accounted for Gold Coast by 48 points at Metricon Stadium on Saturday, building on the come-from-behind two-point victory over North Melbourne and delivering the club its first successive victories since the final rounds of 2010.

“The momentum carried from last weekend, the amazing win that it was, carried into this game,” Cornes said as the Power arrived home from its maiden mission to the Gold Coast.

“To get back-to-back wins it’s been a little while since we did that, so it was certainly an enjoyable trip and I'm just happy the boys played well.”

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Port Adelaide led the Suns by just a point at half-time, after the league’s second newest team matched the visitors’ intensity in the opening quarters.

Cornes said his team-mates gained important confidence out of their third quarter effort when they piled on 49 points to the home side’s two points.

“They’ve been a really good side at home,” Cornes said of the Suns.

“They’ve really pushed Essendon and pushed Freo, so we didn’t take that game lightly. We knew it was going to be really difficult and we were a little bit disappointed with the way we were playing at half time but to come out in the third quarter and really blow the game wide open was a really enjoyable experience for the boys to play some pretty good attacking high scoring footy.”

Cornes paid tribute to his midfield team-mates for stepping up and helping to ensure victory over the side that scored its first ever win against Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium last season.

“I think it’s just great for a young group,” he said.

“The midfield group is starting to gel together really nicely. Matthew Broadbent’s form has been amazing as well as Brad Ebert the whole year. And for Travis Boak to get a really good game under his belt and really hit the scoreboard (three goals) and get lots of the footy, and Pearcey going back in the side has been amazing for us.”

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Coupled with its Round 1 effort over St Kilda, Port Adelaide has now matched its 2011 tally of just three victories, with another 13 games to come in 2012.

“We only won three games for the whole year last year and we’ve got three out of nine so far,” Cornes said.

“We could have had a few more as well if things had gone our way earlier on in the year. On the whole the boys are going pretty well and still moving forward and focusing on what we can control.

“I think it shows we’ve come a long way from last year and we certainly, despite what anyone was saying, we’ve definitely improved and we knew that as a group.

“It’s just about really getting the wins on the board and that can turn into team confidence moving through the rest of the year.”

Port Adelaide faces a testing next three weeks leading up to the bye, taking on Carlton this Saturday night at AAMI Stadium followed by another home clash with Hawthorn and then a trip to Melbourne to meet the Bulldogs.

“We come up against a pretty good side this week so we’ve certainly got our work cut out for us,” Cornes said.

“Definitely it’ll be a great test for us playing on our home ground and hopefully in front of a good crowd.

“We’ll review our game from the Gold Coast and focus on the areas that we need to improve on and then we’ll switch our attention to Carlton later in the week.”

The 29-year-old Premiership player had a run-with-role on Suns captain Gary Ablett, but paid tribute to his team-mates for helping to keep the former Geelong star to 25 possessions.

“Certainly we needed a team effort against Gaz,” said Cornes, who accumulated 24 touches himself and kicked two goals.

“He’s such a great player that it was a real team focus for us to limit his effectiveness and I thought the boys did that pretty well.”

Port Adelaide and Carlton meet at AAMI Stadium from 7.10pm on Saturday, with the Blues accounting for Melbourne by 58 points on Sunday and sitting sixth on the AFL ladder with six wins.